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Nastasia Philipovna was also much impressed, both with Gania’s action and with
the prince’s reply.
“With the greatest respect... and... and veneration,” replied Lebedeff, making
extraordinary grimaces.
“I don’t know--perhaps you are right in much that you have said, Evgenie
Pavlovitch. You are very wise, Evgenie Pavlovitch--oh! how my head is beginning
to ache again! Come to her, quick--for God’s sake, come!”
“Father is a drunkard and a thief; I am a beggar, and the husband of my sister
is a usurer,” continued Gania, bitterly. “There was a pretty list of advantages
with which to enchant the heart of Aglaya.”
“But I have done so, my dear prince!” said Lebedeff, more sweetly than ever.
“How strangely you speak, and how odd you look!” said the other, involuntarily.
He could not say how long he sat there. It grew late and became quite dark.
“How did he strike you, prince?” asked Gania, suddenly. “Did he seem to be a
serious sort of a man, or just a common rowdy fellow? What was your own opinion
about the matter?”
“You ought to be whipped, Colia, you silly boy. If you want anything” (to the
prince) “please apply to the servant. We dine at half-past four. You can take
your dinner with us, or have it in your room, just as you please. Come along,
Colia, don’t disturb the prince.”
As he spoke his last words he had risen suddenly from his seat with a wave of
his arm, and there was a general cry of horror.
“That may be! Perhaps you didn’t _come_ with the idea, but the idea is certainly
there _now!_ Ha, ha! well, that’s enough! What are you upset about? Didn’t you
really know it all before? You astonish me!”

“Oh, my dear fellow,” cried Evgenie, warmly, with real sorrow in his voice, “how
could you permit all that to come about as it has? Of course, of course, I know
it was all so unexpected. I admit that you, only naturally, lost your head,
and--and could not stop the foolish girl; that was not in your power. I quite
see so much; but you really should have understood how seriously she cared for
you. She could not bear to share you with another; and you could bring yourself
to throw away and shatter such a treasure! Oh, prince, prince!”

This injunction had to be repeated several times before the man could be
persuaded to move. Even then he turned back at the door, came as far as the
middle of the room, and there went through his mysterious motions designed to
convey the suggestion that the prince should open the letter. He did not dare
put his suggestion into words again.

“Widower. Why do you want to know all this?”

An hour later, towards four o’clock, the prince went into the park. He had
endeavoured to fall asleep, but could not, owing to the painful beating of his
heart.
If anyone had come up at this moment and told him that he was in love,
passionately in love, he would have rejected the idea with astonishment, and,
perhaps, with irritation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya’s note was a
love-letter, and that it contained an appointment to a lover’s rendezvous, he
would have blushed with shame for the speaker, and, probably, have challenged
him to a duel.

“It’s a good thing that there is peace in the house, at all events,” he
continued. “They never utter a hint about the past, not only in Aglaya’s
presence, but even among themselves. The old people are talking of a trip abroad
in the autumn, immediately after Adelaida’s wedding; Aglaya received the news in
silence.”

At last Varvara Ardalionovna came in search of her brother, and remained for a
few minutes. Without Muishkin’s asking her, she informed him that Evgenie
Pavlovitch was spending the day in Petersburg, and perhaps would remain there
over tomorrow; and that her husband had also gone to town, probably in
connection with Evgenie Pavlovitch’s affairs.
“This is too horrible,” said the general, starting to his feet. All were
standing up now. Nastasia was absolutely beside herself.

“Probably an honest girl living by her own toil. Why do you speak of a housemaid
so contemptuously?”

“Of railways?” put in Colia eagerly.

“But is that all your evidence? It is not enough!”
“Enough!” he concluded at last, “you understand me, and that is the great thing.
A heart like yours cannot help understanding the sufferings of another. Prince,
you are the ideal of generosity; what are other men beside yourself? But you are
young--accept my blessing! My principal object is to beg you to fix an hour for
a most important conversation--that is my great hope, prince. My heart needs but
a little friendship and sympathy, and yet I cannot always find means to satisfy
it.”
“The child she carries is an orphan, too. She is Vera’s sister, my daughter
Luboff. The day this babe was born, six weeks ago, my wife died, by the will of
God Almighty.... Yes... Vera takes her mother’s place, though she is but her
sister... nothing more... nothing more...”

“You know we have hardly spoken to each other for a whole month. Ptitsin told me
all about it; and the photo was lying under the table, and I picked it up.”

“I suppose you angered him somehow?” asked the prince, looking at the
millionaire with considerable curiosity. But though there may have been
something remarkable in the fact that this man was heir to millions of roubles
there was something about him which surprised and interested the prince more
than that. Rogojin, too, seemed to have taken up the conversation with unusual
alacrity it appeared that he was still in a considerable state of excitement, if
not absolutely feverish, and was in real need of someone to talk to for the mere
sake of talking, as safety-valve to his agitation.

“Oh, you must forgive him the blank wall,” said the prince, quietly. “He has
come down to see a few trees now, poor fellow.”
“I don’t know--perhaps--by morning it will be.”

“What are you making such a fuss about?” said the old lady, with annoyance. “You
are a good fellow, but very silly. One gives you a halfpenny, and you are as
grateful as though one had saved your life. You think this is praiseworthy on
your part, but it is not--it is not, indeed.”

“Wasn’t it this same Pavlicheff about whom there was a strange story in
connection with some abbot? I don’t remember who the abbot was, but I remember
at one time everybody was talking about it,” remarked the old dignitary.

“The pleasure is, of course, mutual; but life is not all pleasure, as you are
aware. There is such a thing as business, and I really do not see what possible
reason there can be, or what we have in common to--”
“Quite so, nonsense! Ha, ha, ha! dear me! He did amuse me, did the general! We
went off on the hot scent to Wilkin’s together, you know; but I must first
observe that the general was even more thunderstruck than I myself this morning,
when I awoke him after discovering the theft; so much so that his very face
changed--he grew red and then pale, and at length flew into a paroxysm of such
noble wrath that I assure you I was quite surprised! He is a most
generous-hearted man! He tells lies by the thousands, I know, but it is merely a
weakness; he is a man of the highest feelings; a simple-minded man too, and a
man who carries the conviction of innocence in his very appearance. I love that
man, sir; I may have told you so before; it is a weakness of mine. Well--he
suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, opened out his coat and bared his
breast. ‘Search me,’ he says, ‘you searched Keller; why don’t you search me too?
It is only fair!’ says he. And all the while his legs and hands were trembling
with anger, and he as white as a sheet all over! So I said to him, ‘Nonsense,
general; if anybody but yourself had said that to me, I’d have taken my head, my
own head, and put it on a large dish and carried it round to anyone who
suspected you; and I should have said: “There, you see that head? It’s my head,
and I’ll go bail with that head for him! Yes, and walk through the fire for him,
too.” There,’ says I, ‘that’s how I’d answer for you, general!’ Then he embraced
me, in the middle of the street, and hugged me so tight (crying over me all the
while) that I coughed fit to choke! ‘You are the one friend left to me amid all
my misfortunes,’ says he. Oh, he’s a man of sentiment, that! He went on to tell
me a story of how he had been accused, or suspected, of stealing five hundred
thousand roubles once, as a young man; and how, the very next day, he had rushed
into a burning, blazing house and saved the very count who suspected him, and
Nina Alexandrovna (who was then a young girl), from a fiery death. The count
embraced him, and that was how he came to marry Nina Alexandrovna, he said. As
for the money, it was found among the ruins next day in an English iron box with
a secret lock; it had got under the floor somehow, and if it had not been for
the fire it would never have been found! The whole thing is, of course, an
absolute fabrication, though when he spoke of Nina Alexandrovna he wept! She’s a
grand woman, is Nina Alexandrovna, though she is very angry with me!”
“Do you know,” Aglaya said to him once, interrupting the reading, “I’ve remarked
that you are dreadfully badly educated. You never know anything thoroughly, if
one asks you; neither anyone’s name, nor dates, nor about treaties and so on.
It’s a great pity, you know!”
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a freethinker, and that all
this was due to that “cursed woman’s rights question.”

“Why, he wears an ‘order,’ and it looks so well!”

“Come, come, I’ve always heard that you ran away with the beautiful Countess
Levitsky that time--throwing up everything in order to do it--and not from the
Jesuits at all,” said Princess Bielokonski, suddenly.

Little by little, the rumours spread about town became lost in a maze of
uncertainty. It was said that some foolish young prince, name unknown, had
suddenly come into possession of a gigantic fortune, and had married a French
ballet dancer. This was contradicted, and the rumour circulated that it was a
young merchant who had come into the enormous fortune and married the great
ballet dancer, and that at the wedding the drunken young fool had burned seventy
thousand roubles at a candle out of pure bravado.

“Yes--at least about one. Then I told the whole three years’ story of my life,
and the history of a poor peasant girl--”

“A brilliant idea, and most true!” cried Lebedeff, “for he never even touched
the laity. Sixty monks, and not a single layman! It is a terrible idea, but it
is historic, it is statistic; it is indeed one of those facts which enables an
intelligent historian to reconstruct the physiognomy of a special epoch, for it
brings out this further point with mathematical accuracy, that the clergy were
in those days sixty times richer and more flourishing than the rest of humanity
and perhaps sixty times fatter also...”

“Oh, I won’t read it,” said the prince, quite simply.

Rogojin, when he stepped into the room, and his eyes fell upon Nastasia, stopped
short, grew white as a sheet, and stood staring; it was clear that his heart was
beating painfully. So he stood, gazing intently, but timidly, for a few seconds.
Suddenly, as though bereft of his senses, he moved forward, staggering
helplessly, towards the table. On his way he collided against Ptitsin’s chair,
and put his dirty foot on the lace skirt of the silent lady’s dress; but he
neither apologized for this, nor even noticed it. The deathlike pallor, and a
sort of slight convulsion about the lips, had not left Rogojin’s face. Though he
welcomed his guest, he was still obviously much disturbed. As he invited the
prince to sit down near the table, the latter happened to turn towards him, and
was startled by the strange expression on his face. A painful recollection
flashed into his mind. He stood for a time, looking straight at Rogojin, whose
eyes seemed to blaze like fire. At last Rogojin smiled, though he still looked
agitated and shaken. “You may smile,--but there’s a career in this,” said the
general. “You don’t know what a great personage I shall show this to, prince.
Why, you can command a situation at thirty-five roubles per month to start with.
However, it’s half-past twelve,” he concluded, looking at his watch; “so to
business, prince, for I must be setting to work and shall not see you again
today. Sit down a minute. I have told you that I cannot receive you myself very
often, but I should like to be of some assistance to you, some small assistance,
of a kind that would give you satisfaction. I shall find you a place in one of
the State departments, an easy place--but you will require to be accurate. Now,
as to your plans--in the house, or rather in the family of Gania here--my young
friend, whom I hope you will know better--his mother and sister have prepared
two or three rooms for lodgers, and let them to highly recommended young
fellows, with board and attendance. I am sure Nina Alexandrovna will take you in
on my recommendation. There you will be comfortable and well taken care of; for
I do not think, prince, that you are the sort of man to be left to the mercy of
Fate in a town like Petersburg. Nina Alexandrovna, Gania’s mother, and Varvara
Alexandrovna, are ladies for whom I have the highest possible esteem and
respect. Nina Alexandrovna is the wife of General Ardalion Alexandrovitch, my
old brother in arms, with whom, I regret to say, on account of certain
circumstances, I am no longer acquainted. I give you all this information,
prince, in order to make it clear to you that I am personally recommending you
to this family, and that in so doing, I am more or less taking upon myself to
answer for you. The terms are most reasonable, and I trust that your salary will
very shortly prove amply sufficient for your expenditure. Of course pocket-money
is a necessity, if only a little; do not be angry, prince, if I strongly
recommend you to avoid carrying money in your pocket. But as your purse is quite
empty at the present moment, you must allow me to press these twenty-five
roubles upon your acceptance, as something to begin with. Of course we will
settle this little matter another time, and if you are the upright, honest man
you look, I anticipate very little trouble between us on that score. Taking so
much interest in you as you may perceive I do, I am not without my object, and
you shall know it in good time. You see, I am perfectly candid with you. I hope,
Gania, you have nothing to say against the prince’s taking up his abode in your
house?”
“What suspicion attaches to Evgenie Pavlovitch?”
“Of course, mamma!” said Alexandra. “But let’s have lunch now, we are all
hungry!”
“What an idea! Of course not. And what are you blushing for again? And there
comes that frown once more! You’ve taken to looking too gloomy sometimes,
Aglaya, much more than you used to. I know why it is.”
“Why did you not ask for me at my room if you were in the hotel?” asked the
prince, suddenly.
“It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and my visit, and the happy
termination to which I contributed by accident! Everything fitted in, as in a
novel. I told the poor people not to put much hope in me, because I was but a
poor schoolboy myself--(I am not really, but I humiliated myself as much as
possible in order to make them less hopeful)--but that I would go at once to the
Vassili Ostroff and see my friend; and that as I knew for certain that his uncle
adored him, and was absolutely devoted to him as the last hope and branch of the
family, perhaps the old man might do something to oblige his nephew.

Only the prince stopped behind for a moment, as though in indecision; and
Evgenie Pavlovitch lingered too, for he had not collected his scattered wits.
But the Epanchins had not had time to get more than twenty paces away when a
scandalous episode occurred. The young officer, Evgenie Pavlovitch’s friend who
had been conversing with Aglaya, said aloud in a great state of indignation:

IV.

“Oh well, very little business. There is one little matter--some advice I am
going to ask him for; but my principal object is simply to introduce myself,
because I am Prince Muishkin, and Madame Epanchin is the last of her branch of
the house, and besides herself and me there are no other Muishkins left.”

“It is madness--it is merely another proof of her insanity!” said the prince,
and his lips trembled.

“Oh, no; I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She’s a child now--a
real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see.”

“Certainly not; what are you thinking of? What could have induced you to ask
such a question?” she replied, quietly and seriously, and even, apparently, with
some astonishment.

Not only was there no trace of her former irony, of her old hatred and enmity,
and of that dreadful laughter, the very recollection of which sent a cold chill
down Totski’s back to this very day; but she seemed charmed and really glad to
have the opportunity of talking seriously with him for once in a way. She
confessed that she had long wished to have a frank and free conversation and to
ask for friendly advice, but that pride had hitherto prevented her; now,
however, that the ice was broken, nothing could be more welcome to her than this
opportunity. General agitation prevailed. Nina Alexandrovna gave a little cry of
anxiety; Ptitsin took a step forward in alarm; Colia and Ferdishenko stood stock
still at the door in amazement;--only Varia remained coolly watching the scene
from under her eyelashes. She did not sit down, but stood by her mother with
folded hands. However, Gania recollected himself almost immediately. He let go
of the prince and burst out laughing.

“But I have done so, my dear prince!” said Lebedeff, more sweetly than ever.

“My name really is Lukian Timofeyovitch,” acknowledged Lebedeff, lowering his
eyes, and putting his hand on his heart.

“I really don’t absolutely know myself; I know my feeling was very sincere. I
had moments at that time full of life and hope.”

III.

In another moment, of course, the police would have been on the spot, and it
would have gone hard with Nastasia Philipovna had not unexpected aid appeared.

“Oh, I can’t do that, you know! I shall say something foolish out of pure
‘funk,’ and break something for the same excellent reason; I know I shall.
Perhaps I shall slip and fall on the slippery floor; I’ve done that before now,
you know. I shall dream of it all night now. Why did you say anything about it?”

And so they took their departure; but in this hasty and kindly designed visit
there was hidden a fund of cruelty which Lizabetha Prokofievna never dreamed of.
In the words “as usual,” and again in her added, “mine, at all events,” there
seemed an ominous knell of some evil to come.

He shuddered and stopped; she seized his hand and pressed it frenziedly.

“Well, well! I won’t again,” said the master of the house, his anxiety getting
the better of his temper. He went up to his daughter, and looked at the child in
her arms, anxiously making the sign of the cross over her three times. “God
bless her! God bless her!” he cried with emotion. “This little creature is my
daughter Luboff,” addressing the prince. “My wife, Helena, died--at her birth;
and this is my big daughter Vera, in mourning, as you see; and this, this, oh,
this,” pointing to the young man on the divan...

“He is boring us!”

“I haven’t seen him once--since that day!” the prince murmured.

However, he made up his mind that he would himself take the note and deliver it.
Indeed, he went so far as to leave the house and walk up the road, but changed
his mind when he had nearly reached Ptitsin’s door. However, he there luckily
met Colia, and commissioned him to deliver the letter to his brother as if
direct from Aglaya. Colia asked no questions but simply delivered it, and Gania
consequently had no suspicion that it had passed through so many hands.

“Pavlicheff?--Pavlicheff turned Roman Catholic? Impossible!” he cried, in
horror.

“Ask Gavrila Ardalionovitch to step this way,” said she to the man who answered.

“So that is true, is it?” cried the prince, greatly agitated. “I had heard a
report of it, but would not believe it.”

“You seem to be a little feverish tonight,” said the actress.

“That’s true enough, he’ll have lots before evening!” put in Lebedeff.

“Father, will you hear a word from me outside!” said Gania, his voice shaking
with agitation, as he seized his father by the shoulder. His eyes shone with a
blaze of hatred.

“I was passionately in love with her when she was engaged--engaged to my friend.
The prince noticed the fact and was furious. He came and woke me at seven
o’clock one morning. I rise and dress in amazement; silence on both sides. I
understand it all. He takes a couple of pistols out of his pocket--across a
handkerchief--without witnesses. Why invite witnesses when both of us would be
walking in eternity in a couple of minutes? The pistols are loaded; we stretch
the handkerchief and stand opposite one another. We aim the pistols at each
other’s hearts. Suddenly tears start to our eyes, our hands shake; we weep, we
embrace--the battle is one of self-sacrifice now! The prince shouts, ‘She is
yours;’ I cry, ‘She is yours--’ in a word, in a word--You’ve come to live with
us, hey?”

However, let us take one more example. Thus, we know for a fact that during the
whole of this fortnight the prince spent all his days and evenings with
Nastasia; he walked with her, drove with her; he began to be restless whenever
he passed an hour without seeing her--in fact, to all appearances, he sincerely
loved her. He would listen to her for hours at a time with a quiet smile on his
face, scarcely saying a word himself. And yet we know, equally certainly, that
during this period he several times set off, suddenly, to the Epanchins’, not
concealing the fact from Nastasia Philipovna, and driving the latter to absolute
despair. We know also that he was not received at the Epanchins’ so long as they
remained at Pavlofsk, and that he was not allowed an interview with Aglaya;--but
next day he would set off once more on the same errand, apparently quite
oblivious of the fact of yesterday’s visit having been a failure,--and, of
course, meeting with another refusal. We know, too, that exactly an hour after
Aglaya had fled from Nastasia Philipovna’s house on that fateful evening, the
prince was at the Epanchins’,--and that his appearance there had been the cause
of the greatest consternation and dismay; for Aglaya had not been home, and the
family only discovered then, for the first time, that the two of them had been
to Nastasia’s house together.

“Why, are you a doctor, prince, or what?” he asked, as naturally as possible. “I
declare you quite frightened me! Nastasia Philipovna, let me introduce this
interesting character to you--though I have only known him myself since the
morning.”

Lebedeff ran up promptly to explain the arrival of all these gentlemen. He was
himself somewhat intoxicated, but the prince gathered from his long-winded
periods that the party had assembled quite naturally, and accidentally.

“Let’s go and hear the band, then,” said Lizabetha Prokofievna, angrily rising
from her place.

Prince S. looked as black as night, and was silent and moody. Mrs. Epanchin did
not say a word to him all the way home, and he did not seem to observe the fact.
Adelaida tried to pump him a little by asking, “who was the uncle they were
talking about, and what was it that had happened in Petersburg?” But he had
merely muttered something disconnected about “making inquiries,” and that “of
course it was all nonsense.” “Oh, of course,” replied Adelaida, and asked no
more questions. Aglaya, too, was very quiet; and the only remark she made on the
way home was that they were “walking much too fast to be pleasant.”

“In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I remember he looked at
me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and this same look I observed in his
eyes now--which was the cause of the annoyance I felt. “Father, your dinner is
ready,” said Varvara at this point, putting her head in at the door. She was a
fine woman of the same age as her husband, with a slightly hooked nose, a high,
narrow forehead, thick hair turning a little grey, and a sallow complexion. Her
eyes were grey and wore a very curious expression at times. She believed them to
be most effective--a belief that nothing could alter.
“Pavlicheff’s son! It is not worth while!” cried Lebedeff. “There is no
necessity to see them, and it would be most unpleasant for your excellency. They
do not deserve...”

Evgenie Pavlovitch remarked here that he had spoken of his intention of leaving
the service long ago. He had, however, always made more or less of a joke about
it, so no one had taken him seriously. For that matter he joked about
everything, and his friends never knew what to believe, especially if he did not
wish them to understand him.

Nastasia listened to all this with great interest; but the conversation soon
turned to Rogojin and his visit, and this theme proved of the greatest
attraction to both Totski and the general.

“Yes, I’m at home. Where else should I go to?”

Muishkin stopped short.